Hong Kong - More than 10,000 Indonesian women working as live-in maids in Hong Kong are being illegally underpaid, with some receiving just half the legal salary, according to a survey Monday.

The survey of foreign domestic helpers found that 12 per cent of Indonesian maids in the city of 6.9 million are paid less than the government-set minimum wage of 460 US dollars a month.

Jakarta - A politician and former separatist rebel was shot dead in Indonesia's Aceh province in the latest attack targeting former separatists, an official said Friday.

Taufik, who headed a district branch of the Aceh Party, was gunned down at his home Thursday, said Ibrahim Syamsuddin, a spokesman for the Aceh Transition Committee, an advocacy group for former separatist fighters in Aceh.

Taufik, whose wife is running in a regional election, was the third former rebel to have been killed in the past two weeks, Syamsuddin said.

Kuala Lumpur - Thick smoke blanketed several states in Malaysia Thursday after winds brought in choking haze caused by forest fires on Indonesia's neighbouring Sumatra island.

In the southern state of Malacca, visibility was 6 kilometres while visibility at the international airport in the northern state of Penang was recorded at 8 kilometres by midafternoon, with an air-pollutant index of less than 100, which qualifies for moderate air quality, the Meteorological Department said on its website.

A department spokesman said the haze was expected to continue until the end of the week, adding that residents were encouraged not to carry out open burning to help improve air quality.

Jakarta  - At least 37 people were injured and many buildings damaged when an earthquake measuring magnitude 7.4 on the Richter scale struck early Thursday off the northern tip of Indonesia's Sulawesi island, an official said.

The quake hit Talaud Islands, a small archipelago off Sulawesi near the Philippines, and of the 37 people injured there, nine people were in serious condition, said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry's crisis centre.

Jakarta - Nine people were seriously injured and many buildings were damaged when an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale struck early Thursday off the northern tip of Indonesia's Sulawesi island, an official said.

A small island chain off Sulawesi near the Philippines was hit hardest, with houses and government buildings collapsing, said Sutiono, an official at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in Jakarta.

"According to the latest information, nine people were badly injured in Kabarua district," Sutiono told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Jakarta - An Indonesian court on Wednesday threw out a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against a son of late president Suharto over a business deal involving a failed national car project.

The Finance Ministry had sought 4 trillion rupiah (340 million dollars) in damages from Hutomo Mandala Putra, better known as Tommy Suharto, and his companies.

PT Timor Putra Nasional, set up by Tommy Suharto to build a homegrown car, defaulted on its loans to national banks after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

But in 2003, Timor's assets were sold to a little-known company called Vista Bella Pratama by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, which managed Timor's assets after the carmaker defaulted.